Monday, March 27, 2017

We are getting some beautiful days to work in the yard, and
after a weird winter, the yard need a little attention.

Oh, those lovely oaks and their leaves and their tassels.
Time to rake, blow, and / or mulch your leaves to get them off your lawn areas.
Leaves trap moisture and block sunlight from your turf areas, which is great in
beds (we call it mulch), but not so good for lawns. When talking to lawn care
companies, it amazes me when they tell me that they went to ten yards and could
only treat six because the leaves in the yard.

Over the next month, many of us will be applying (or have
someone else apply) different products to the lawn for fungus, weeds, and to
fertilize, so having the leaves up will insure a uniform application of
product.

One part of my job at Possum’s is working with athletic
fields and it always amazes me how much difference the field looks verses the
surrounding area. The grounds superintendent puts out a preemergent herbicide
and the field has little to no winter weeds. Right outside the fence in the
untreated area there are all kinds of winter weeds. Kill these winter weeds now
before they compete with your grass emerging from dormancy and before they
produce mature seeds that will be next year’s crop.

The same goes for mole crickets. Right off of the playing
surface, there are mole cricket tunnels everywhere. Be sure to treat for mole
crickets in your yard. Mole cricket mating season is now and they are doing a
lot of tunneling near the surface causing damage to turf. The grasses we have
in this area slough off their roots as they begin to grow in the spring, so the
last thing the grass needs is a mole cricket separating its young new roots
from the soil and drying out the grass plant.

Since our grasses slough off their roots at this time, our
(Possum’s) 04-00-10 (Perk) and SeaHume are great to apply. We spray a growth
regulator designed to grow roots onto this 04-00-10 and enhance it with humic
acid (also helps to grow roots), so your turf and plants get off to a healthy
start. The SeaHume is full of minor nutrients, gibberellins, and other
bio-stimulants that will make the young grass plant (or any plant) healthy,
ready for adversity (fungus, salt, lack of water, insect attack) and ready for
another season.

Fleas have been really active all winter. Treating inside
your house with a growth regulator before you have an issue can go a long to
avoiding the flea battle.Treating your
pet with Prefurred One or Prefurred Plus will keep the fleas at bay.

Fire ants are numerous and visible because of the rain. A
product like Bug Blaster or Sevin will help with fire ants, mole crickets, and
fleas.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

A friend of mine’s wife got a bad case of the chiggers, and
with all the public service announcements about lyme disease, I figure a
mention about ticks is not a bad idea. Since deer carry the ticks that cause
lyme disease and we have a huge population of deer, a little prevention is
always a good idea.

Chiggers and redbugs are in the Trombiculidae family.They are a mite and not an insect so not all
insecticides work on them.They can be
easily controlled with products that contain Carbaryl (Sevin) or Bifenthrin
(Bug Blaster, Bifen).Carbaryl and
Bifenthrin will also kill ticks (not insects, eight legs like spiders), fleas
and many other pest as a bonus.Always
read, understand and follow product labels.

The larva of the chigger is what bothers most people.The larva will inject a fluid into the skin
which breaks down cells of a person, and then the chigger ingests these
cells.Most people think chiggers burrow
into the skin; however, this is an “old wives tale”.

When I was young, and doing landscape jobs that started with
clearing the lots, I would regularly be the dinner of this mite.Back then, people would treat chiggers with
nail polish thinking the mite was burrowed into the skin and this would
suffocate the chiggers.I later found
out that I didn’t need to be walking around with pink and red nail polish all
over me!

Chigger larva can crawl around on you for several hours
before attaching to your body.While
crawling around on you, if they hit a waist band or the elastic area of your
socks, instead of going under or around this barrier, they will usually latch
on right there.They also like warm
moist areas.Using repellants that
contain DEET on your clothing and exposed skin will prevent the chiggers from
attaching to you.There is an organic
product called Liquid Net that is DEET free and all natural that might be worth
trying.It does not list chiggers on the
label; however, it does list mosquitoes, gnats, ticks, no-see-ums, other biting
insects.If Liquid Net works against
chiggers, it would be a good all-natural chemical-free alternative to
DEET.

Chiggers, like mole crickets, over-winter as adults in the
soil.Once it warms up, the adults lay
eggs which hatch out into the larva.The
larva crawl around looking for about anything to feed on including rodents,
birds, snakes, rabbits, toads and humans.The larva then turns into a big red adult that can be seen on driveways
or in the lawn.The adults do not attack
people.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Products start getting slung around the Lowcountry
landscapes this time of year. I want to write a little bit about keeping
product out of our storm water drains, marshes, and other bodies of water.With
retention ponds, marshes, rivers, streams, and oceans, we are surrounded by
water in the Lowcountry.It is very
important to preserve the valuable resource that brought or keep us all in the
Lowcountry.

Living in the Lowcountry, water is everywhere!All the water shed ultimately ends up in our
waterways and the ocean.Much of this
water shed comes down from the upstate and ends up in our local waters. As more
development occurs along our water fronts and just more development in general
(roofs, parking lots, roads), there is more runoff water.We definitely do not want to pollute the
resource that we depend upon for water, food, recreation and jobs.

With a few common sense practices you can greatly reduce the
amount of product that goes into our storm water system.

After spreading fertilizer or any control products, be sure
to remove (sweep) it from any hard surfaces like sidewalks, driveways, and pool
decks.Do this right after spreading the
product before you water it in or it rains.Do not rinse your spreader or sprayer off on your driveway where the
water will then run off into the ditch or into any body of water.

When filling up your spreader, clean up any spilled material
right away.Sweep it up and put it back
into the spreader so it can be applied evenly throughout the lawn.

With all of the natural water and now all the retention
ponds (in neighborhoods and commercial sites), many more people have to deal
with water quality issues either at home or at work.Many spreaders shoot product out 10-15
feet.This means you have to be extra
careful not to put product directly into the water.Keep a safe distance away from the water and
always read the product label for precautions concerning water.You should read, understand and follow the
entire label.With certain ant control
products there are definite restrictions about how close you can get to
water.Of course you don’t want to be
standing in a pile of ants on the riverbank while trying to fish.This is where using ant bait would be a good
alternative.Most ant baits have far
less active ingredient than other ant control products.

If you live on the water, having a low growing natural area
before the water can act as a good filter.If you have turf growing right up to the water, you increase your
chances of having run off issues.If you
choose low growing natural areas, you will still have a good view of the water,
but will not have the maintenance associated with turf.

If you have a very sandy yard or a rock hard clay yard, you
will want to amend your soil to hold water, nutrients and products.In the case of a clay soil, regular top
dressing with Cotton Burr Compost or SeaHume will help the water penetrate the
ground instead of running off into the street.You will get much better results from the products you use (saving you
money and saving the environment) if the product is not running off into the
street.For sandy soil, Cotton Burr
Compost and SeaHume will help keep the product in the root zone so the plants
can absorb the nutrients instead of leaching into the ground water.Top dressing is a very easy cultural practice
where you just spread the Cotton Burr Compost or SeaHume over the top of your
lawn and beds (no tilling required!).

Using high quality, slow release nitrogen products or
organic sources of nitrogen will save you money in the long run and nitrates
will be less likely to appear in the water system.Also choose products with a very low to no
middle number (phosphorous) unless your soil test dictates otherwise. This will
lower the amount of algae bloom in the waterways.At Possum’s we have been practicing this
since we opened in 2002.

Only fertilize your yard as indicated by your soil
test.This lessens the overuse of
product greatly and will save you money in the long run.

About Me

Bill Lamson-Scribner can be reached during the week at Possum’s Landscape and Pest Control Supply. Possum’s has three locations 481 Long Point Rd in Mt. Pleasant (971-9601), 3325 Business Circle in North Charleston (760-2600), or 606 Dupont Rd, in Charleston (766-1511). Bring your questions to a Possum’s location, or visit us at http://www.possumsupply.com. You can also call in your questions to
“ The Garden Clinic”, Saturdays from noon to 1:00, on 1250 WTMA (The Big Talker).